Oh There You Are I Can't See You Is It Raining?

by Laura Broadbent

An experiment in hybrid and versatility of voice, these texts stutter around the slipperiness of language and the transience of desire.The first section is an exercise in paradox wherein language as medium breaks free of signification and desire, knowing very well that language is inextricable from desire. The second section concedes that language may be inescapable yet its borders and meanings must and can be moveable, so that through the decomposition of what has been said or written the new may sustain itself on the dregs of the past. The third section is a burlesque reflection on the kaleidoscopic incarnations of Eros as it passes through assorted personalities and neuroses, that is, a chorus of anonymous men, all in various states of confusion about love. Each man is but a different face on the ten-thousand-sided-dice of the same drive wherein gender stereotypes are inflated to show their contours, exposing romantic desire as it essential, absurd, random, hideous, and blind.

76 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2012

About the author

Laura Broadbent was raised in Stratford, Ontario and has resided in Montreal since 2005. Her first book of poetry Oh There You Are I Can't See You Is It Raining? (Snare Books, 2012) won the 2012 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. She was recently appointed the reviews editor at Lemon Hound, and will begin her PhD in 2013.

Oh There You Are I Can’t See You Is It Raining? has been eloquently described as “an experiment in hybrid and versatility of voice, these texts stutter around the slipperiness of language and the transience of desire.” Broadbent’s writing does indeed come across as an experiment bent on breaking down proverbial gender stereotypes and giving new meaning to relationships, love and romantic desire in terms of each being essential, absurd, random, hideous, and blind.

Reviews

[THE TORONTO QUARTERLY · Rating 5 out of 5]

Check out my interview with the talented Laura Broadbent here:
http://thetorontoquarterly.blogspot.c...